[…] Senator Hagan’s thin lead suggests a close race, much like what we saw in Alaska, Colorado, and Iowa, but unlike her collegues there, she has managed to stay ahead. After a dramatic drop over the course of numerous surveys through 2013 into early 2014, she has recovered a small but consistent lead over Thom Tillis, who is watching his disapproval ratings climb whilst being pummeled by Hagan’s ads. Fans of Professor McDonald’s fantastic election website have been able to enjoy early return statistics, and while it is early, they seem to reiterate the tough task ahead of him: the first batch is older and whiter, but also very Democratic for this early on. A pasty electorate is no help to him: contributor Brandon Allen outlined a big problem Tillis is facing among white voters in this electorally segregated state earlier today:

As you can see, not even Elizabeth Dole, who lost her seat in 2008 by an 8-pt margin, did as poorly with white voters as Tillis is doing now. She carried them by 18-pts. Even more stark, Mitt Romney won 2.5 times more North Carolina whites than Tillis has averaged in polls since August – and remember, Romney only carried the state overall by two points!

Why? He can’t blame his current situation on being out-banked: Udall and Braley have had more cash at their disposal, and both trail their Republican opponents. He can’t blame disunity within his own party, either: Mitch McConnell is viewed with distrust by a lot of conservatives, yet he is now the clear favorite in Kentucky.We feel his inability to shift the narrative to Washington and away from North Carolina, where he has been under a magnifying glass with the rest of the legislature, has been his biggest problem. The candidates that have effectively made their opponents into creatures of DC or co-signers on a weak Administration have found small leads (Ernst, Gardner) or narrowed the pathway against a popular incumbent (Brown). Those that have botched whatever footing they did have, and allowed the Democrat to define them, stalled and sank.[…]

Amen.We’re going back and forth on the state education budget as opposed to getting down and dirty about the disastrous impact Washington has had on our economy, our country, and our culture.

I think Tillis is part of the problem, but so is his campaign team. This is the most incompetently run major campaign I can remember in North Carolina. Fetzer, with all his flaws, even managed a more competent one for Dole, and even Broyhill’s fiasco was less incompetent. Fetzer retired from consulting after the Broyhill debacle and Tillis’ team should do so as well.

There are issues out there that could still turn the race around, but Tillis and his team either don’t grasp them or are too inept to use them.

What a tragedy for the GOP. We ought to be beating Hagan with a decent candidate and competent campaign.

Latest Hagan ad says Tillis is responsible for Ebola case in Texas, and got the guy to jump the fence at the White House on a dare. Future ads will tie him to the AMC Gremlin, and causing Katrina to hit New Orleans.

I think that we must face the fact that the Democrats used Rev. Barber’s Moral Monday to win the election for Hagan before the race ever began. Rev. Barber has had a tremendous effect across the state and his Moral Monday group has painted the GOP Legislature as a bunch of buffoons. Guns at the state fair? Even I have to question that.

Barber’s three ring circus was only one facet of ”Blueprint”, the well organized leftwing smear campaign against the GOP legislature, but Blueprint has had its impact on the Senate race. The biased news media spewing the Blueprint propaganda actually had a far greater impact than the rotund reverend and his clown car. Most importantly, the GOP sat there like a deer in the headlights and let this happen, even though the Blueprint plan was leaked ahead of time and they knew what was coming. That was a failing of the Robin Hayes NCGOP.

But Republicans also should have comprehended that this would be a major problem if we nominated anyone out of the legislature, especially a legislative leader as our US Senate nominee. If the GOP wanted to take this seat, the first step should have been to talk Tillis out of running, and if that did not work, joining forces in an ”anybody but Tillis” effort in the primary. State leaders should have demanded that the NRSC and Rove stay out of our primary. Their meddling is what stuck us with Tillis.

The Moral Monday movement did shed some much needed light on what Tillis and the GOP legislature/governor were up to. It educated the NC public about the power grab cronies that came in to the state government.

Just how badly can you insult the Tillis campaign? Saying it is worse than the ill-fated Broyhill campaign of 1986. Twice now the GOP Establishment has thrown away a Senate seat. Build a fence on the Virginia border to keep Karl Rove out of the state.

Went to the Walter Jones barbecue last night at the Hilton in Greenville. Good barbecue. Rand Paul spoke.

One gentleman sat across from me and commented that he had seen a new Tillis ad. He said it was “some” better. I asked him what the new ad was about and he said, “I can’t remember.” Evidently it was not too good if he could not remember the content.